


Courage Always Rises

by madsthenerdygirl



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Regency, Arranged Marriage, Fake Marriage, Had to Put That Austen Nerdiness to Some Use Right, I couldn't resist, Multi, Polyamory, There Are So Many Austen Quotes and Paraphrases In This, Wasn't Sure if This Should Be E or M, Went With E Just to be Safe, Wyatt Logan's Bisexuality Crisis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-28
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2020-05-28 17:21:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19398835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madsthenerdygirl/pseuds/madsthenerdygirl
Summary: “My courage always rises with every attempt to intimidate me.” ~ Elizabeth Bennet, Pride and PrejudiceIt is a truth universally acknowledged that a mysterious man from the continent, an unexpected heiress, and a displaced soldier all must be in want of an adventure.





	Courage Always Rises

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lucifersfavouritesinner](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucifersfavouritesinner/gifts).



Most young ladies of only somewhat respectable means, upon hearing that they were to inherit a great fortune, would greet such news with the sort of unmitigated joy usually reserved for the arrival of a regiment to an otherwise small and sleepy town.

Lucy Preston was not most young ladies.

Lucy Preston had been planning on running away to Gretna Green on Tuesday next, when her mother was out calling upon friends. She had it all in place. Ordinarily, she would not chance the scandal that would fall upon her family. However, circumstances had changed.

She had lost her beloved younger sister, Amy, the one person she would have wished to protect from scandal.

Mother had refused to allow Amy the carriage to go to call upon friends, insisting that Lucy ought to have it in order to call upon the mother of a Mr. Noah Hallifax, a most distinguished gentleman and one that Carol Preston had thought a fine match for her eldest daughter. Lucy’s protestations that she had no intention upon calling that day and wished to spend the day in the library, and that Amy ought to go and see her friends and that it was much too soon to call upon Mrs. Hallifax besides, all fell on deaf ears. Carol Preston saw things her way, and her way only.

Amy, unconcerned with her mother’s lectures, went out walking instead, only to catch cold in the rain. She was obliged to stay at the house of her friends, where Lucy tended to her dearly, to no avail.

Lucy did not—could not—though she knew it to be harsh of her, forgive her mother for her carelessness with Amy’s welfare.

Now, she had a man that she wished to marry, a man of poor means of whom her mother would never approve. A soldier in the local regiment. And if she had to run off to marry him, and it did cause a bit of scandal, well then, who was to suffer for it? The mother who had caused her daughter’s death? So be it. Besides, the Prestons were not people of consequence. They had a strong family name and had, according to her mother, once been in charge of a great estate to the north of London. But since Lucy’s father’s death, they had little income, and as such Lucy doubted her elopement would make a large splash in the papers.

Until now.

Now—now Lucy was finding herself to be the heiress to a great fortune indeed and was to be obliged to move to London to take part in higher levels of society.

Eloping now would cause such a massive scandal of the kind that neither she nor her betrothed could escape, and she was not going to burden him with that or start their marriage under such a cloud.

But what to do?

Lucy waited anxiously in the stables, brushing her horse, ears straining for the footfall she had come to know and love so well.

Wyatt Logan slipped in, glancing behind him to make sure that no servant could see—to put one’s self in the power of servants was a sure way to disaster, what with papers paying quite large sums for juicy details about their employers.

“Lucy.” He hurried over, jumping a little in surprise when Lucy promptly dropped the brush and grabbed onto him, holding tightly. “What—what’s the matter?”

Lucy had to take a moment for herself, shaking, before drawing back, still keeping a tight hold on Wyatt’s lapels. “Have you not heard? I thought the whole town was speaking of it.”

“I’ve been out running a drill all day, I only just received your letter. Lucy, what is it, is it your mother—”

She shook her head. “We are not discovered. But—I have come into money.”

Wyatt stared at her. “That does not seem a cause for tears.”

“A Mr. Cahill, of London, a most rich man—with ten thousand a year—has passed on. His only son and heir passed on just the year before, dreadful riding accident. And now that he has died, he’s apparently left it all—to me. As his heir.”

Wyatt looked even more confused. He was an honorable man, with a love of dogs and horses, and Lucy truly did love him, but he was not the brains of the operation.

“My mother had an affair with him,” she confessed. “Apparently I am his daughter. It was hushed up but I suppose he felt that—that even a bastard child, and a daughter at that, was better than his money going into the hands of those he did not know. So now I am to go to London to take up with their society, and…”

Wyatt finally put two and two together, and he went stiff, clutching Lucy tightly. “But—we had it all set, we were to go—”

“I know. I know but—but Wyatt if we were to go now, it would cause such a stir, we’d never escape from it. How could we live like that? With doors slammed in our faces and people whispering about us?”

“Hang it all, I say.”

“You say that now, Wyatt, but you’d feel quite differently in a year.” Lucy knew Wyatt better than he knew himself. “But I have a plan.”

Wyatt relaxed at that. Lucy always had a plan.

“There are several gentlemen of consequence in London. Gentlemen who are in need of a wife and an heir but have no particular interest in either. You can be charming, when you wish.” Lucy smoothed her hands over his chest. “If I can secure a marriage of pure convenience, then I’m sure I can introduce you to my husband, and you can arrange to become good friends. Perhaps a man with a job requiring much travel, or that asks for him to be in town while I am in the country seat. Then you and I can do as we please.”

“I would rather be your husband in truth, then hide from the world.”

“The world is not kind in that way.” Lucy kissed his cheek. “Perhaps I can even find a man who is much older and will not live so long. A few years of secrecy, what is that in the end?”

Wyatt still looked doubtful. Lucy kissed him more thoroughly in response. “I will arrange all of it,” she assured him.

Wyatt sighed. “I trust you. But I do not like it.”

“I do not like it either,” Lucy assured him. “But we will make it work.”

Somehow.

* * *

London society was… well.

It was society.

Flynn had been all over the continent building his fortune before he went to England, and he had found that while the trappings were different, it was really much the same everywhere. People were the same. Most of them were boring, boorish, dull. Many were small-minded and ambitious, greedy. And too few were kind, or witty, or courageous, and even fewer were all three.

He had every intention of suffering through all of his time here as he set his plan into motion. Jiya, his ward, had told him he ought to give people more of a chance. “You scare them away with your sharp tongue, Pa—Flynn. If you were to perhaps approach them with an open palm instead of a closed fist, you might find them more open to showing their virtues in return.”

Jiya and he had an… interesting relationship. He dared not call her daughter and he knew that there were times she stopped herself from calling him such nicknames as children afforded their parents. Yet she was more than simply someone to protect from bad marriage proposals, and he did more than manage her money. He cared for her deeply. Taught her music and French and read to her. Bought her new dresses and sketchbooks, more than she could possibly need. Her happiness was his chief object aside from his determined revenge.

But he could not erase the gap between them. The gap drawn in blood—the blood of his wife and his daughter.

Perhaps he ought to. But after so long going on as they were, how to change?

Presenting himself as the guardian of such a young lady immediately got him invitations to all the dinners and balls he could ask for. Jiya’s mixed heritage raised eyebrows, but then, many a gentleman had a dalliance in a colony and brought home a child out of it. And Jiya was a bright young girl, with sparkling eyes and a ready wit, easily turning hesitance from others into love.

Flynn supposed, in their world of hypocrisy, it was all that could be asked for.

And so he attended party after party as Jiya’s escort and guardian, and endured many attempts from other guardians to set their daughters upon him—some of those daughters barely one and twenty, and he old enough to be their father—and resigned himself to being incredibly bored while he set about his plans.

And then—Miss Preston.

While her father was revealed (or rumored) to be the Mr. Cahill who had left to her all his fortune, Henry Preston was her registered father and the man who had raised her, and so as Miss Preston she was known.

Miss Preston was wading into a sea of sharks, and yet held her head high. She returned barbed witticisms with remarks of her own. She read extensively, with a particular love for history. And from the moment she had met Jiya, she had been the kindest of friends, calling upon Jiya often and going for long walks in the park where all could see that the latest London society darling had made it clear that Miss Jiya Flynn, mixed heritage or no, was to be welcomed.

Flynn was unbearably smitten.

Miss Preston, on the other hand, seemed far from taken with him. Their first meeting had not gone well, he could admit that. He had treated her overtures of friendship towards Jiya with suspicion and had made some rather… cutting remarks. Lucy had responded in kind, to the point that had she been a man, Flynn would have challenged her to a duel, and the entire affair had only been saved from ruin by the arrival of Mr. Carlin, Flynn’s solicitor’s assistant, who looked as though he would rather have died on the spot than interrupt them.

Flynn didn’t know what to do to get back into the woman’s good graces, but he wanted to try.

And then—then the oddest thing happened.

Miss Preston was over for coffee and tea, and she and Jiya were conversing quietly while Flynn read the paper. For propriety’s sake, Mr. Carlin and Mr. Mason, Flynn’s solicitor, were also invited—but then somehow, Mr. Carlin had walked over to talk to Jiya and Miss Preston was over with himself and Mr. Mason.

“How goes it with Rittenhouse?” Mr. Mason asked as Miss Preston approached.

“I have yet to receive an invitation,” Flynn replied. “But I am trying to remember patience… yes, Miss Preston?”

For Miss Preston had gone white as a sheet, and Flynn honestly wondered if he ought to get smelling salts. “Pardon me. Did you say… Rittenhouse?”

Mr. Mason prudently excused himself and went to inspect the bookshelves.

“It is only…” Miss Preston sat down next to him. “It is only that there is the Rittenhouse Club, which my—which Mr. Cahill, he was a member, and I am—I have suspicions, regarding them, and if you also…”

Flynn was not sure how much to trust to her. “That name has… dogged me for some time. I would not trust them.”

Miss Preston twisted her hands in her lap. “Mr. Flynn, you must understand, I do not enjoy the position… I did not ask for this. I had another life I was intending to lead. A man I was intending to marry. That was all taken from me. I could not refuse this position. I want to be free of my mother and free of this. If you would—if you were to help me, then I think I could get you access to the Rittenhouse Club.”

“And how exactly would a woman accomplish that? It is a gentleman’s club.”

“I am the daughter of one of their esteemed members,” Miss Preston replied. “And my husband would, naturally I am sure, be welcomed into their ranks.”

Flynn would have choked if he had anything in his mouth.

“Miss Preston. Are you—”

“I know it is unconventional,” Miss Preston whispered. “But…” She glanced over at Jiya. “You are an unconventional man. It would be nothing more than an arrangement. Convenience for both of us. I would never impose upon you, I swear it.”

Of course. Of course, she would not wish to impose. She cared nothing for him. It hurt, like a knife sliding between his ribs, but then, he had done little to raise himself up in her esteem. She was offering him a way to finally destroy the people who had murdered his family, and he must take it.

If his own heart suffered in the process, well, he had suffered for years, mourning Lorena and Iris. What was one more injury?

Besides, he was better than many other men out there, he supposed. He was not eighty, or a drunkard. He did not strike his family or servants, and he managed his money well. He could give her freedom, the freedom that a woman such as Miss Preston clearly craved.

If that was all she permitted him to give her—it was enough. He would make it be enough for himself.

“I suppose we ought to do this properly,” he said.

“You needn’t…” Miss Preston began but he shook his head.

“No, if I am to marry you, even as a convenience, I could do nothing less than court you the proper way. Your mother, I’m sure, would at least thank me for it.” He glanced over at Jiya—what _was_ Mr. Carlin saying to her that had her in such gales of laughter? “Shall I call upon you tomorrow?”

Miss Preston nodded. “Tomorrow, then.”

* * *

Lucy had expected, when Mr. Flynn informed her that he would do this properly, that he would call upon her and make a proper proposal. Mother had been Lucy’s escort to all of the dances, and it was only through contrivance that Lucy managed to avoid Mother joining her at Mr. Flynn’s for the evening or when she wished to call upon Miss Flynn.

(Miss Flynn had in fact recently told Lucy that she could call her by her first name, Jiya, and Lucy felt rather honored.)

Mother did not seem altogether taken with Mr. Flynn, which rather offended Lucy, and the notion that she was offended on Mr. Flynn’s behalf caught her by surprise. Mr. Flynn had been stubborn, and offensive, and rude, and bullheaded, and completely the opposite of all that a gentleman ought to be. There was no reason for her to be angry with her mother on behalf of Mr. Flynn, of all people.

And yet.

Surely Mother would not object to a proposal from a man of five thousand a year?

But Mr. Flynn did not stop by to propose.

Instead, he stopped by simply to… to call?

A social call ought to last at least fifteen minutes. Mr. Flynn stayed for twenty, during which he politely asked after her mother’s health, and left her, rather awkwardly but earnestly, with a copy of _Sense & Sensibility_, a popular new novel that Jiya had apparently quite loved, and that he thought Lucy would enjoy as well.

Lucy, who had been prepared to graciously accept a proposal, stood in confusion, hardly feeling her legs, as she took the book and accepted Mr. Flynn’s bow and exit.

She was still in confusion when she went to a ball the next night, only to have Mr. Flynn approach her at once. “Miss Preston.”

Lucy wondered why her breath caught. “Mr. Flynn.”

He looked as though he was swallowing everything he wanted to say. “I was hoping that I could ask—if your dance card is not yet full—it would be an honor if—would you take the first two dances with me?”

Lucy nearly gaped.

Mr. Flynn never danced with anyone.

It was, in fact, a point of frustration with the many mothers of London society that a handsome and rich man would refuse to dance with their daughters. Had the balls been any smaller, Mr. Flynn could not have gotten away with it, but there were enough other men available to dance that the others could not prevail upon him.

And yet here he was, asking her—and as nervous as a schoolboy about it.

She said yes, mostly out of surprise.

Turned out, Mr. Flynn was a very good dancer. His conversation, on the other hand, was in the realm of awkward silence.

“Would you like to be the one to comment on the weather?” Lucy asked. “Or shall I?”

“Is that the order of things?”

“Now that we have filled the mandatory thirty seconds of staring at one another, yes, I believe so.”

Mr. Flynn actually flushed. “I was—I did not mean to stare.”

“No, normally you prefer to glower.”

“I do not—not at you.”

Lucy nearly stumbled in the steps. He was right—he did glower, at everyone, but not… not at her. “Well, you’ve certainly managed to impress the whole of London, and in the wrong sort of way.”

Mr. Flynn did glower then, just a little. “I am not out to impress London in the right way.”

“Oh? Then who are you out to impress?”

Mr. Flynn flushed again and looked away. When he looked back at her, his face was carefully neutral. “My ward tells me you enjoy reading and sketching, Miss Preston. That historical subjects are your favorite.”

That was rather out of the blue. “I—yes.”

“I have some rather interesting texts on the histories of the world, particularly of the Mediterranean, if you would be interested. If you’d like—you may make use of the library as you please.”

Lucy almost tripped over her own feet again. “That would—be very generous of you, thank you, sir.”

The dance ended, and they bowed and curtsied, and Lucy wondered why it was that she felt as though she was hardly breathing at all.

After that, she made use of the library at the Flynn residence—if only because it was a part of the plan, and to see Jiya.

Not for any other reason.

Mr. Flynn continued to call once a week, promptly, and Mother was starting to give Lucy those meaningful looks that Lucy had received far too many times over the years—it was the _for all that is holy please do marry this one before you become a burden to my nerves_ look.

Mother was forever going on about her nerves.

At last, Lucy could stand it no longer. She could not bring Wyatt to London until she had a husband, and she was simply not going to wait in purgatory forever.

She called upon Jiya, at a time when she knew that Mr. Carlin was calling upon Jiya as well. Mr. Flynn was there of course, as Jiya’s chaperone, and looking completely and utterly confused as to why his solicitor’s assistant was in his parlor.

Honestly. The man might not be the arrogant and stuck-up jackanapes that she had once thought him, but he was, truly and utterly, a fool.

“Mr. Flynn.” Lucy tried to ignore the way that he jumped to his feet like a fire had been lit under his chair as she entered. “I was having some trouble with a text of yours, would you be so kind…?”

Jiya fairly beamed at the idea of her chaperone being a whole room away while she conversed with Mr. Carlin.

Mr. Flynn looked baffled.

Lucy lowered her gaze and adopted a firmer tone. “Mr. Flynn. If you please.”

The man hurried to escort her like she had threatened to burn his house to the ground.

“With all sincerity,” Lucy hissed the moment they were alone, “could you not give the poor man some room to breathe? Your ward would thank you for it!”

“What are you speaking of?” Mr. Flynn hissed in response.

“I am speaking of Mr. Carlin wooing Jiya!” Lucy replied, struggling to keep her voice down.

“He’s _wooing_ her!?” Mr. Flynn looked as though he were being strangled, and made at once for the door back to the drawing room.

Lucy neatly stepped in between, putting her hands up so that he must either stop or have her pushed against his chest, a rather improper position.

Mr. Flynn glowered at her as he obligingly took a step back.

“That is better. Mr. Carlin is a lovely man with good future prospects. And Jiya is smitten with him. Now, perhaps you can answer my question.”

“About the text?” Mr. Flynn asked, his sarcastic tone implying he knew that she had lied about that.

“About our arrangement. Why have you not proposed!?”

Mr. Flynn’s jaw dropped open. “I—what—Miss Preston—”

“Was that not our agreement?”

“Yes, which was why I—I cannot simply stride into the house of any woman in London and ask for her hand!”

“You most certainly can. I can think of at least ten women who would cut off a finger for the chance.”

Mr. Flynn flushed and looked strangled again. “I thought—did you not appreciate the books?”

“What? Oh, yes, no, they were lovely, I truly—” Lucy shook her head to clear her thoughts. “What do books have to do with anything?”

“I was _trying_ to—have all women become as impossible as you in the time since I last courted, or are you merely a special case, Miss Preston?” Mr. Flynn began to pace. “I said that I would do this properly, and I meant to stick by that. You are—you deserve—any woman deserves to be properly courted. The stain of gossip is already upon you from the manner in which you attained your fortune, I did not wish for any more to come from a hasty proposal! I did not wish people to say—about you—” He stopped and turned to face her, his hands behind his back. She suspected his hands were interlinked for dear life. “I would not have anyone even think of saying that you were in any way below the behavior of a proper gentleman’s daughter. Society would never be allowed to say that about my wife, or about you.”

Lucy was quite lucky there was a chair handy, because she found herself with the overpowering need to sit down, which she did, promptly. “Oh.”

“Oh,” Mr. Flynn echoed. “Do you know longer wish for our arrangement?”

“Not in the slightest, indeed I wish that you would rather—hurry it up.”

“Oh, I suppose if I proposed to you right now that would be satisfactory?”

“At this point sir I am scared I shall have to take it upon myself to do the proposing. But if you are not willing—”

“Blast it, Miss Preston, have you not listened to a word I said?”

“Well are you going to propose or not?”

“Fine! Will you marry me?”

“Yes!”

They glared at each other for a solid twenty seconds.

“…I will, of course, have to, ah, re-propose later. At your house. Properly. For your mother.”

“Yes. She’ll be listening at the door the entire time, I’m sure.”

They shared a smile, and Lucy’s stomach flipped oddly.

Mr. Flynn cleared his throat. “Very well. I shall—tomorrow, then?”

“Tomorrow would be—yes. Well. I ought to—” She stood, and then made to step towards the door, except that Mr. Flynn did the same, and there was a rather embarrassing moment of feet-shuffling before they righted themselves, and he showed her out.

And then went to terrorize poor Mr. Carlin, no doubt.

Lucy hardly slept that night. She could hardly say why. She had not been filled with such an odd sense of anticipation since—since Wyatt had given her a kiss in the fields between the Preston home and the town, where no one could see, and she had known, known like she had known the sun would rise tomorrow, that he would be proposing to her.

And he had.

But this was—this was nothing like that. This was not love in truth. This was a charade, to help one another. To give her freedom and to give Mr. Flynn whatever it was he wanted from the Rittenhouse Club.

And yet… she could not sleep.

The next morning, Mr. Flynn arrived at ten o’clock, the earliest one could possibly call and be proper about it.

He was shown in, and greeted Mrs. Preston with his usual politeness of manner, and then kindly asked if he might speak to Lucy alone.

Her mother’s face said it all: _if you refuse this Lucy Preston I will strike your name from the family registry._

Apparently, disliking the man’s character did not stop Carol Preston from wanting her daughter to marry him if he had five thousand a year.

Mr. Flynn looked at her.

Lucy looked right back at him.

Mother was undoubtedly listening. He couldn’t simply say nothing. But nor did Lucy know what to say to encourage him. Or smooth this over. Or make it any less—dreadfully, painfully awkward. They were not in love, after all, they were not—

“Miss Preston.”

“Mr. Flynn.”

“I hope that I am not…” He cleared his throat. “That I am not presuming too much. I am not one for speeches. If I—if my feelings were less strong, perhaps I could talk about them more.” His hands were gripped behind his back again. “But if—I was hoping that you might do me the honor of accepting my proposal of marriage.”

Lucy knew that this was the point where she ought to say yes, but she was gazing up into his face and for some reason, words simply wouldn’t come. She merely kept… meeting his gaze with hers, feeling—pinned.

Mr. Flynn ran his tongue over his bottom lip and seemed to be wondering if she expected more from him. “You would never—want for anything. You would never be in doubt of your security, or my affection. I would rather you doubted the stars were fire, first.”

It was not entirely a direct quote, but Lucy knew when someone was referencing Shakespeare.

“I know,” she blurted out. “I mean—that is to say—it would. Yes. I would—I will. Accept your proposal. Sir.”

Before Mr. Flynn could say anything, Mother had burst into the room to offer her congratulations.

Lucy felt lightheaded the entire rest of the day.

* * *

Wyatt had no clue what it was he ought to expect, coming up to London.

Lucy’s letter had been… interesting.

_Flynn has been most generous in his offer of marriage if we will assist him in infiltrating the Rittenhouse Club, of which my late father was a member. My father Cahill, not my father Preston, who indeed as you know my love I still consider to be my father in truth, whatever money Mr. Cahill might have left me._

_You will find Flynn, I think, a difficult man at first, but he has a good heart. He will not tell me much but I suspect he has seen a great deal of pain in his life. I know you to be a stubborn man but please, for the sake of our plan and for our future together, be gentle in your tone with him. He understands that his marriage to me is one of convenience and he has forfeited any chance at finding a woman to make him happy in marrying me, a woman he loves not._

_He has few friends here in London and is, I am told by his ward Miss Jiya Flynn—a darling girl whom you will love as a sister I am sure—that he is quite a shot and would be happy at a companion for hunting in the country._

_I have missed you dearly. If you hurry you may make it in time for the wedding—although perhaps you would not wish to attend that, if it pains you. I know you are a terrible liar. Perhaps it is best you leave the talking to Flynn to me._

_Please do not challenge him to a duel. In the first place, I suspect he would win. In the second, he has been kind in making no claim on me. In the third, I think you will like him if you give him the chance._

_I am repeating myself. Please come posthaste._

_As always yours,_

_Lucy_

The fact that she was calling him merely ‘Flynn’ without the ‘Mr.’ in front suggested a familiarity that made Wyatt’s stomach twist. And the way that she wrote of him spoke of an esteem that Wyatt found alarming.

Surely if Lucy had feelings for the man she would tell him, wouldn’t she? She was an honorable woman. She would not toy with Wyatt if she had found another man to love.

But if she did not have such feelings—why—

Well. He was in London now. He would see soon enough.

The Flynn residence was a perfectly nice one but not ostentatious. Off to a good start, then. Wyatt rapped upon the door and was greeted by a footman, gave his name, was informed he was expected, and to please wait in the parlor.

He had just enough time to wonder if this was a mistake, if Lucy was only keeping to her engagement to him out of courtesy, before there were footsteps on the stairs and the landing, the rustle of skirts, and Lucy was flying into his arms.

He caught her, found his face caught in her lithe hands, and was then kissed within an inch of his life.

“I am sorry.” Lucy pulled away, only for a moment, and then kissed him again. “We must be discreet but—” She kissed him once more. “—I would not make a public cuckhold of Flynn but it has been _months_ and I have missed you—”

Well, far be it from Wyatt to deny her if she felt like being in his arms and stealing his breath.

There was the sound of the front door, and Lucy quickly pulled away. “That would be him,” she whispered, ringing a bell for tea.

A moment later a very—

Wyatt wasn’t even moving and he nearly lost his footing.

If Lucy truly felt something for this man, he could not quite blame her. Mr. Flynn was tall, broad shouldered, with dark slightly windswept hair and shifting gray-green eyes. His features were a little rugged, but in a pleasing manner, and he carried himself with a gravity that seemed to hold a coiled fire within.

Wyatt realized he had been staring like an imbecile for ten seconds, and that Lucy had introduced him and now both Lucy and Flynn were staring at him in confusion.

“Pleasure to meet you,” he managed. Good Lord it was quite warm in here. Probably because of Lucy kissing him—yes. That was why he was so wrong-footed. “I was in London and heard that Miss Preston—my apologies, Mrs. Flynn—had been engaged in happy matrimony and wished to make my congratulations.”

He tried not to let bitterness lie in his mouth. His heart cried out that it out to be Mrs. Logan, not Mrs. Flynn, and that others ought to be congratulating him with Lucy.

But the world was not kind, and this… Flynn, person, seemed…

Well he seemed all right. Aesthetically.

“We appreciate it,” Flynn said. He gave Wyatt a smile that made Wyatt’s stomach heat up in a way that only Lucy’s smiles usually did. And, well, Jessica’s, before her death in a premature childbirth.

Only Lucy knew of that double loss.

“I ought to check on the tea,” Lucy said, standing. “Please, do make conversation without me.”

“You think of everything,” Flynn said in a low murmur to her as she passed him.

Lucy flushed, struggling to hide a pleased smile, ducking her head down.

Wyatt’s jaw nearly dropped.

She was—indeed, she must be—Lucy blushed for no one, besides Wyatt himself, not in _that_ manner. She did have feelings for her supposedly convenience-only husband. But if so—if she and Flynn were together, why would she not tell Wyatt?

And why would she kiss him?

Lucy did not lie. She would tell Wyatt if she no longer cared for him. So she must care for him, but then how could she also care for Flynn…

Flynn’s besotted gaze after her made it clear that he was quite head in the clouds after Lucy as well. What on earth was happening here, then?

“Please, sit,” Flynn said, gesturing. “Tell me then—the footman said your card listed you as in the army?”

“Of late, I was recently discharged and I find myself at loose ends.”

“I often find myself the same way. I confess, London society is greatly lacking. I have yet to find anyone to accompany me to the clubs or lounges, or to make me acquainted with the best places for hunting. Perhaps…?”

Flynn was looking at him rather the way Wyatt imagined a tiger looked at its next meal, and he realized he had once again gone without speaking for too long a time.

“Ah, of course, I would be happy to—I am not well acquainted with London myself.”

“We could explore together, then.”

“Yes.”

“You are not married then?”

“Oh, no, I have yet to—find the right companion.”

He really was a horrendous liar. Flynn got an odd look on his face, and then gave him another tiger-smile. “I understand. It can be difficult.”

Wyatt realized now why he was feeling so odd.

…this was how women felt when a man behaved in a courting manner towards them.

Well, first off, he did not wish to feel like—that is, Flynn was not making him feel uncomfortable—well he _was_ , but not in that—merely because he—he seemed, well, dangerous, and Wyatt had always been drawn to the dangerous.

Secondly, though—Flynn had just given Lucy the most adoring of looks. And she seemed to return the sentiment. Why would Flynn wish to court on the wrong side of the blanket, so to speak, when he had a wife with whom he was in love and whom seemed to love him in return?

What in blazes was going on in this blasted house!?

* * *

Wyatt Logan—a man who looked far too soft and pretty for the sort of work that they would be doing, and far too obvious in his manner for any sort of subterfuge—paced back and forth after Lucy and Flynn had finished explaining the matter to him.

“If I am to understand correctly,” he said, frowning, “then you, Mr. Flynn…”

“Flynn, please.”

If he could not have Lucy’s heart, then he saw no reason not to strike up an intimacy with the man in front of him. It had been many years since his last war and his last time with a man, before he had met and fallen for Lorena, but he still remembered how to ride, if one would excuse the euphemism.

“Flynn.” The tips of Logan’s ears went delightfully pink. “You have reason to believe that the members of the Rittenhouse Club have invested in such a way that they wish for the Napoleonic Wars to continue.”

“They are working actively against the interests of several governments and continuing to sow dissent,” Flynn explained.

“And what proof do you have of this?” Logan asked. “Why would anyone do such a thing?” He looked at Lucy. “Did Cahill leave any papers to this effect, any sign—”

“I have done the research,” Flynn growled, his temper rising. Lucy had said that Logan was from the army, that he would be the reliable and trustworthy second man Flynn would need to have his back when he went into the Rittenhouse Club on her name. But if the man insisted on treating this as some sort of made-up child’s game…

“And how did you come by this research?” Logan scoffed.

Flynn hated to say this—the words seemed to stick in his mouth—he had hoped to tell Lucy of this first, privately, but now— “I served in many a skirmish on the continent, and eventually was promoted to work as a spy. In the course of my work I came across a name—Rittenhouse. I asked my superiors about it, hoping to understand why the name of a gentleman’s club in England would be associated with wars on the continent.

“That night my little daughter, Iris, who was no more than five—my wife thought that she heard her coughing. We were concerned for her health of course as it was coming on winter, and Lorena—that was my wife—went out to check on her.”

Flynn swallowed. Lucy was looking at him with concern and he could only pray that concern would not turn to pity. He hated pity and most of all would hate it coming from her. “The next thing that I heard were two gunshots. I dispatched myself—but it was too late. They were gone. My house was swarming with soldiers, I know not from what army. I barely escaped with my life.”

He advanced on Logan, who flushed, his eyes growing dark as he stared up at Flynn, holding his gaze. “I have spent the last five years building my fortune and making contacts. Mr. Mason has had unfortunate dealings with Rittenhouse. I contacted him and he agreed to become my solicitor to aid me in taking them to task. I am a self-made man, with no family lineage to grace my blood, nothing but the sweat of my brow to prove my place here in society, and I have no labored these long years to have revenge on those who took my family—who even now make toys out of people like yourself who enlist without choice, to further line their own pockets—only to have an upstart tell me in such scathing tones that he does not believe me.”

Flynn realized that he was standing only an inch from Wyatt, and that it was quite improper of him to be doing so. Lucy was staring at both of them, her eyes dark and sad and, above all, knowing.

Flynn took in a deep breath and forced himself to step back. “I apologize for my temper,” he said shortly.

“What temper,” Logan said in dry tones.

“I lost my sister,” Lucy said. She glanced over at Logan, who ducked his head down like a dog being chastised by his master. “Amy. My mother showed great favoritism to me as her eldest—and I suspect because of my true lineage. She has never said as much outright, but in her hints and tones I read a long-standing hope that Mr. Cahill would acknowledge me as his child and raise me, and therefore her, up to a higher station. In attempting to secure for me a husband, she allowed Amy to catch a deadly chill. I nursed her as best I could but… she died as I watched, as I could do nothing but hold her hand.”

“I am sure,” Flynn told her gravely, “that holding her hand was but little to you, and yet great to her. I would give much to have been able to hold my girls in their final moments. I am sure it was a comfort to Amy, to have you.”

Lucy gave him a small, grateful smile, and Flynn had thought that his heart could not melt more for her, and yet, here he was. A fool for her once again.

“I have told her as much myself,” Logan muttered.

“And yet you will not take your own advice,” Lucy replied in sharp tones.

Before Flynn could begin to question that statement, Logan spoke to him. “I—had a wife, as well. And a child, though she did not live long enough to even be named. Jessica, she… she died in childbirth. I held her hand, I promised her it would be… that all would be well, but she died… in such pain and scared…”

Logan cleared his throat and raised his head again to look Flynn in the eye once more. “My condolences on your tragedy and my apologies for lack of belief. There have been rumors about your past about in society, given that so little is known of it, and your wife has been reticent in her speaking of you to me. I believe I allowed that to… cloud my judgment.”

“Will you two kiss and make up now, then?” Lucy said dryly.

Flynn only barely restrained himself from sending her an alarmed look. It was true, he was attracted to Logan, in spite or perhaps because of the man’s temper. Not everyone was so forgiving of what some might call ‘deviant tastes’, and simply because Lucy’s heart lay with another—although she had spoken little of this fiancé as of late—did not mean that he wished to flaunt his desire for someone in front of her. He would not be so grossly inconsiderate as that.

Lucy, however, seemed amused, as though the exchange of tempers between the two men had been entertaining on the whole aside from the baring of their personal tragedies.

Flynn allowed himself to relax. He took another step back and turned to sit once again in his chair. “It will take some time to prepare. Lucy cannot attend the club, as a woman, but through her father she will, we hope, be able to enable myself to attend. I was hoping that a gentleman of your rank would be able to get in more easily with the staff of such a location, and learn from them the particulars of the club so that we are not stumbling about blind when we get inside.”

“It will be an endeavor of some weeks,” Logan said. “If we do not wish to expose ourselves by pressing too hard and asking for haste.”

“I have waited five years,” Flynn said, a trace of a growl entering his voice once again. “I can wait a few weeks more.”

Especially since, once this mission was accomplished, there would be no more reason for Lucy and himself to live so closely. If she wished to stay in London society then she very well could, but Flynn would retire himself to the country, trying to find what peace and solace that might remain to him. Lucy would undoubtedly be grateful for the distance, so that she might summon her lover and be with him as she pleased.

It was selfish of him, Flynn knew. But although he made no claim or design on Lucy’s heart, he could not help but wish to spend as much time in her presence as he could.

Well. At least now he had Logan to distract him. And Lucy, with her generous heart, did seem to care for him as a friend.

He told himself it was enough.

* * *

Wyatt had been going slowly mad over the course of the last few weeks.

He and Lucy would spend what snatches of time together that they could, but she was understandably reluctant to engage in anything much directly under Flynn’s nose, even though he of course knew of the arrangement. Wyatt understood and thought it a small matter to wait until this endeavor with Rittenhouse was finished and there was a cordial separation between husband and wife. He was not going to flaunt himself with Lucy, not when Flynn was ostensibly helping them. Especially when Wyatt could see that Flynn was dreadfully in love with Lucy.

Flynn, though. Flynn was—he—

If he was so in love with Lucy, then how was it that he and Flynn—well—

At first they had their… rocky start. And Flynn was the most stubborn of men, cantankerous, honest to the point of being too blunt for anyone’s good nature, and prone to spark debate. Mr. Carlin and Miss Flynn would throw sardonic comments back his way, but only Lucy dared to engage him in a full battle of wits, and Wyatt would watch as though it were a game of tennis, back and forth as they lobbed verbal volleys at one another. Wyatt himself had tangled with Flynn on a number of issues and, to his personal shame, rarely came out the victor.

Yet Flynn was also… kind. He was most thoughtful to Miss Flynn, his ward. They did not call one another father and daughter, but their behavior matched it. Wyatt had stumbled upon him speaking with Mr. Mason about arranging for personal funds to be used to purchase supplies for local orphanages and hospitals, both of which were sorely lacking in funds because of the war. He was staunchly against the use of slavery in the colonies and refused to attend a dinner hosted by a family who owned such plantations.

And as their rocky start began to smooth out, Flynn would… behave towards Wyatt in a manner that Wyatt was used to seeing men behave towards women they wished to court. Perhaps even more brazenly.

It made no sense. Surely Flynn could see that the tide of Lucy’s affection was in his favor. Wyatt waited for the morning where Lucy would tell him that she had changed her mind and wished to be with Flynn as his wife in truth, rather than merely in letter.

Why then did Flynn persist in standing so close to Wyatt, in looking at him with such heat, in touching him at the littlest excuse?

It made Wyatt dizzy.

He was not—he loved Lucy. He had loved Jessica. Women in general were a great love of his. He could not understand why standing near Flynn made his breath go short, why he longed for each touch, why he was always aware of Flynn’s presence no matter where in the room Flynn might be.

It all came to a head the night they finally got into the Rittenhosue Club.

Their first night was merely to scope out the place and ensure that the office that held all the club paperwork—their evidence—was where they thought it was according to Wyatt’s reconnaissance with the servants.

They entered, checked their coats, and went around the room, inspecting the games. Wyatt was a deft hand at cards, and Flynn teased him to play a round or two.

Wyatt found his cheeks warming and, unable to resist the urge to wish to impress Flynn—an urge he could not explain but also could not deny—he did play a few hands and won a good few pounds as well.

Flynn was unexpectedly charming to the various gentlemen they met. More so than Wyatt.

“If you had carried yourself in such a gentlemanlike manner when we first met,” Wyatt whispered as they at last disentangled themselves and surreptitiously slipped out into a hallway, “I should have taken to liking you so much sooner.”

“With you, I was honest in my manner,” Flynn replied, taking Wyatt’s arm as they moved down the hall. “Would you prefer I treated you as I do these men? Smiling to temporarily please while behind their backs I hold them in disdain?”

“No,” Wyatt said, his voice oddly breathless. “I would not.”

Flynn paused, his gaze flicking over the door behind Wyatt. “I believe this to be the one we want.”

“It will be locked.”

“Locks are of little trouble to me.” Flynn gave him a grin like that of a wolf and Wyatt found himself wishing to be the red-hooded girl of the same story.

Footsteps sounded just out of sight—someone headed their way. There was no time to hide—and Wyatt had no way to think of an excuse—and then Flynn was taking him by the shoulders and say, “normally I would ask for permission,” and then—then Flynn was kissing him.

Wyatt grasped onto him instinctively, feeling Flynn taking control, the same as Lucy did, and he certainly didn’t mind Lucy taking control—indeed he was quite enamored with it—but Flynn doing it sent a new set of sparks down his spine and he found himself within seconds pressed against the door and at Flynn’s mercy and not minding in the slightest.

Flynn kissed with a single-minded passion, as if the rest of the world simply did not exist. Wyatt found himself having to hold on so that he did not sink to the floor, his legs numb even as the rest of him burned, pressed up against Flynn in this manner.

Perhaps—yes, he did—women were—and he knew he shouldn’t, but—he never wanted Flynn to stop.

“I—gentlemen!”

Flynn yanked himself back and turned, leaving Wyatt gasping and dizzy and painfully, stupidly hard in his pants, feeling immolated.

A servant was standing there, gaping, looking astonished.

Flynn smoothly reached into Wyatt’s pocket—brushing against his cock in the process and causing Wyatt to bite back a whimper—and drew out a few quid, walking over to the servant. “I’m sure this will cover any trouble,” he said, cool as a summer breeze.

The servant took the quid, nodded, and departed through a side door.

Wyatt stared after him. “What if—he will gossip.”

“This cannot be the first time that such things have gone on in this establishment,” Flynn replied. “And now we have diverted suspicion from our true course.”

Wyatt gaped at him. “Was that—all for show, then?”

Flynn looked at him appraisingly, and then bent down slightly, kissing Wyatt a final time, softer and yet no less intense for it. “No.”

* * *

When Lucy had first been shown her bedroom by Flynn, she had felt an odd… pang of disappointment.

“We are to have separate bedrooms?” she asked, as he had shown her, his new bride, her quarters.

Flynn had looked startled. “That is how most couples with the means do it, yes. And given our… agreement, I felt it all the more prudent that you be allowed your own private space.” He had hesitated—bashful, afraid, Lucy had realized. “Do you not like it?”

“It’s lovely,” she had told him, for indeed it was. She could not explain why she had felt so… empty.

But she did love her rooms, her rooms in which she was now writing in her journal by the window, waiting for Wyatt and Flynn to return. They were so carefully done up, and in a taste she most appreciated, almost as if Flynn had them re-decorated according to what he knew of her style.

When two figures emerged from the darkness of an alleyway across the street, she hastily set her journal aside and slipped downstairs. She was in nothing but her dressing gown, but she supposed it would not matter. Wyatt had seen her in far less, and she… found she wanted Flynn to see her like this.

Lucy waited on the upper landing until the two men slipped inside. They spoke in low voices, too low for Lucy to understand, and then Flynn helped Wyatt out of his coat.

Her stomach flipped and twisted as Flynn leaned in, his hand moving to rest upon Wyatt’s hip. It was most daring. Touch of any kind was to be done carefully, even between men—not for the sake of supposed sexual impropriety, but rather because showing too much familiarity with someone of a differing rank might cause a stir up the social ladder.

Lucy knew she ought to be glad that there was such friendship between the two men after a rocky fortnight or two. But instead all she could do was clutch at the bannister in dismay as Wyatt leaned into Flynn and Flynn said something right into the shell of Wyatt’s ear.

Surely such intimacy was unnecessary, even for the sake of being quiet at such an hour.

Wyatt at last pulled away, and she watched Flynn stare after him as Wyatt went down to the servant’s door that led into the kitchen. Looking for a glass of port or sherry, no doubt, to split with Flynn.

Lucy was suddenly grateful that it was too dark to read Flynn’s face as he watched Wyatt vanish.

Flynn looked up then—or perhaps she made a noise, and that alerted him to her presence—she felt rather as though gripping the banister was the only thing keeping her from flying away.

In the darkness and silence of the early morning hour, she could hear him inhaling sharply. “Lucy.”

She did so love how he said her name.

She loved…

It seemed as though she had been so busy worrying herself over Wyatt and Rittenhouse and Flynn by extension that she had not taken time to examine the workings of her own heart. Now, seeing the man she had loved for months with the man she had married, apparently both in the grip of that soft intimacy known to lovers, she looked at her heart—and there, she found Flynn.

But too late did she understand herself, and relatedly, Flynn. No wonder he had agreed so readily to her suggestion. Not only for Rittenhouse, but to preserve himself. She knew, of course, that there were those out there who found that there was not so much pleasing in the opposite sex as there was in the same. Lucy herself had exchanged some kisses with girlhood friends that were not the chaste kisses of those with a mere sisterly affection. Flynn must be one of them.

And she had fallen too quickly and too blindly to stop herself in time.

“Lucy,” Flynn repeated, moving up the steps to her. “You look like a ghost, have you been awake this whole night?”

“I was waiting up for you,” Lucy managed. Her words stuck in her throat. “I see that you—and Wyatt had a rather—you seem to have overcome your differences.”

Flynn took off his own coat and wrapped it around her shoulders. “The house is quite cold at this hour, you will need more than a dressing gown away from the fire. And—yes, Wyatt and I have come to find that we are… not so diametrically opposed as we had first considered ourselves.”

“I suppose that he will prevail upon you to make a house in the country, then, away from society, once this is all over.”

Flynn offered his arm to her, and she took it numbly, allowing him to guide her down the stairs. “We have not spoken so far into the future. We were occupied with Rittenhouse.”

“Yes, but you will wish to spend time with him away from others once this is over…”

Flynn stopped, on the second stair from the bottom, and stared at her. Even in the darkness, with only the moon filtering through the windows to provide a dim, ethereal light to the scene, she could read the expression of surprise and consternation on his face.

“Lucy.” Flynn wet his lips in the way that made her stomach drop, the way that she now knew made her ache, made her want. “I did not start on this endeavor because of Wyatt, and it is not because of Wyatt that I intend to see it through.”

“I know, it is for your family—”

“It started because of them, yes, but it is not merely for them that I am continuing on my course.” Flynn’s dark gaze pinned her down. He looked terribly soft and near to breaking. “Lucy, do you not—can you not know?”

“What am I to know?”

It felt as though she was on the precipice of a great truth, one that would make her or shatter her, and Flynn looked as if to bolt only that he was frozen to the spot—

“I found it,” Wyatt whispered, reappearing, some glasses and alcohol in hand.

Lucy loved Wyatt, truly, but she had never been so close to striking him as she was in that moment.

“Thank you,” Flynn said, taking the glasses. “Perhaps we should discuss our next move?”

Lucy swallowed down the whirlwind of emotions threatening to choke her. “Yes, yes, we ought to.”

She saw the way Wyatt’s cheeks colored as Flynn took the bottle from him and oh, oh, she was drowning, she was truly drowning.

* * *

Flynn was not entirely sure what was wrong with Lucy. She seemed to be taking to avoiding both Wyatt and himself the last few days.

He knew he ought to ask her about it, but he was rather occupied with another matter, right out of the blue.

Mr. Carlin stopped by, asking if he might speak with Jiya alone.

Flynn had done this dance twice, first with Lorena and then with Lucy. He knew what was about to happen.

He also knew that if he forbade Jiya from it that she would not only never speak to him again, but she would find a way to poison him horribly so that he died in agony and she could do with her fortune and her heart as she pleased.

“I shall fetch her,” he said, leaving Mr. Carlin in the study.

Wyatt was sitting sprawled out on the couch in a manner quite close to debauched, and Flynn honestly wanted to ask him if he was intentionally trying to get Flynn to ravish him or if that was simply how Wyatt naturally was.

Flynn cleared his throat pointedly.

Wyatt looked up from his book, realized what was happening, and jumped to his feet. “I will just, um, I shall—right.” He gave Mr. Carlin a pat on the shoulder and a _good luck_ whisper and then dashed from the room.

Flynn went upstairs to get Jiya.

His ward was sitting in front of her mirror, carefully checking her hair in a manner that suggested she not only knew Mr. Carlin was calling, but that she had been expecting him.

Flynn stared at her. Jiya was—his ward in law, yes, he had never adopted her. But she was in every way…

“Jiya?”

She looked up. “Pa—Flynn.” She stood. “What is it?”

He found his throat oddly tight and swallowed. “I have been—most unfair to you. I have maintained a distance between us when you needed a family. Before I… I want to tell you, first and foremost, that you are family to me. You are my daughter. And I do hold the deepest of affection for you, and always shall.”

Jiya blinked several times, her eyes bright. “Oh. I—I take it Mr. Carlin is downstairs.”

“Yes, that he is.”

Jiya hesitated a moment more, then flew to Flynn, hugging him tightly.

Flynn settled his chin on her head and wrapped his arms around her. “Does he make you happy, my dear?”

“Yes, Papa. We are so alike, him and I, and he—I cannot even describe it.”

Flynn took Jiya’s face in his hands, tilting it up. “I could not part with you for anyone lesser.”

Jiya gently unwound her arms from around him, nodding, and allowed him to gently wipe off the couple of tears that had slid down her face. “Off you go,” he told her.

Jiya hurried down the stairs faster than lightning.

Flynn stood on the upper landing, where he could just faintly hear a joyous outburst, and then giggling, and then nothing—for whispers, he presumed, could not reach from the study up to where he stood.

Lucy emerged from her rooms. “It sounded as though a herd of elephants went down the stairs, what—”

“Mr. Carlin and Jiya are engaged,” Flynn said.

“Oh.” Lucy put her hand on his arm. “And you are—you are quite well, with that?”

Flynn’s fingers itched to place his hand over hers. “I am.”

* * *

The second time getting into the club was a little more difficult in that they had no intention of leaving.

Wyatt followed Flynn inside as before, nodded at the door man, and took Flynn’s coat as if to helpfully check it along with his own at the closet.

Instead, however, he veered right, to the appointed restroom, where on the previous trip he had noticed a lovely teak cabinet from the far east.

The cabinet, as he suspected upon jimmying open the rather pathetic lock, was empty, and merely for show. Wyatt stowed both coats inside, and then stopped by the coat closet, where he deposited the two slips of paper he had stolen from it upon their last visit, having changed the dates written on them—it would now show in their accounts that Sergeant Major Logan and Mr. Flynn had both dropped off and retrieved their coats, and had therefore left the building.

He proceeded to join Flynn at one of the billiard tables, where Flynn slyly spent an hour driving Wyatt to distraction by touching him discreetly on the wrist, speaking quietly in his ear, and doing all manner of other intimate gestures that were enough to pass for mere close affection to others but Wyatt knew spoke of far more than that.

As the time for the closing of the club drew near, Flynn led Wyatt out into the hall, where they slipped into a servant’s door and from there into a closet with cleaning supplies.

There they waited.

And occupied themselves in the meantime with some behavior that would have gotten them both immediately thrown into the worst sort of scandal had they been caught. But they were not caught, and by the time Flynn wrenched his mouth away from Wyatt’s, having deemed enough time to have passed safely, Wyatt was floating and in a state of dishabille.

They made their way back to the office, where Flynn picked the lock on the door, and then they made short work of obtaining the documents needed.

“You sure we should not, well, rather go through the proper channels about this?” Wyatt whispered as they moved through the darkened streets to the headquarters of the _Times_. Flynn had a contact there who would print the damning evidence in the morning, exposing Rittenhouse and its machinations for all to see.

“And risk a member of Rittenhouse being a part of it and able to cover things up?” Flynn shook his head. “No, public outcry is the only way to solve this.”

Contents delivered to a woman named Drummond, Wyatt was feeling rather pleased as they walked home. All had gone well, and Rittenhouse seemed not to suspect them.

“Flynn?”

“Yes?”

“We ought to—I have not yet told Lucy of our—of how we—but we ought to.” And then somehow this whole mess, a mess that Wyatt honestly did not quite understand, could be sorted out. It was more tangled than a ball of knotted twine and he was not even sure how it had come to be that way.

Flynn made to respond, but they had just reached their front door—and the air was split with a scream.

Lucy’s scream.

* * *

The bastards!

She had become aware of someone in her room, a presence, and at first she had woken up and thought that all those silly Gothic novels were getting to her head, but then she had heard someone, and to her own dismay she had screamed.

The figure had been searching for something, no doubt—oh for her journal—and she had lit out of bed and grabbed a fireplace poker, only for a brick to go flying through the window, no doubt a way to scare her and a way to warn the person indoors, and then the figure was leaping back out the window and was gone.

Her legs trembled and she sank to the floor, her heart beating wildly. She had not thought they would be so bold.

On her knees, she saw that the brick had a piece of paper written around it. She unwrapped it, careful of the shattered glass.

_Do you wish to end up like your brother?_

Her brother—her half-brother, Cahill’s son who had died in a riding accident.

Not such an accident, it seemed.

“Lucy!”

She was up in Flynn’s arms in an instant, secured. “Wyatt—”

“I’ll check the perimeter. The bastards can’t have gone far.”

“My journal,” Lucy burst out, nonsensical. It must be the shock. “Did they—”

“No, no _moja draga_ , it is safe.”

“And—you and Wyatt—”

“We have done it. The accounts have been dropped off at the papers’.”

Flynn lifted her as if she weighed nothing, carrying her out of her room and into his.

There was an adjoining door between their quarters, one that supposedly was for use when the husband wished to visit his wife on conjugal matters, but neither of them had ever used it. On a few occasions Lucy had been tempted to draw Wyatt to her room and ride him, slow and sure, the way they used to in the hayloft. It was always a guaranteed way to make Wyatt grow loud and coarse in his tone, unable to keep himself quiet, and Lucy wanted Flynn to hear them, to know, to coax him through the door—

If she’d had any hope, even a flicker, that he would truly join them… but she had seen increasingly the way that he gazed at Wyatt, the way that Wyatt gazed back, and Lucy could not… she knew Wyatt still cared for her but she would not make him choose. If it was only a matter of Wyatt alone, she could share him, that would be no trouble. But to long for Flynn as well, and to not have him…

She could not even sleep from it.

Yet, now Flynn carried her with all the tenderness in the world, lighting the lamp one handed, and only set her down when he had reached his bed and could place her upon the covers. “You are not hurt?”

She shook her head. “Only shaken.”

“I heard—you screamed—” Flynn’s face was terribly pale and she realized that he must have been reminded of his family, of his poor wife and child.

To her shock, Flynn kneeled in front of her, her hands clasped in his, his forehead against her knee. “I should never have left you alone,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I should have ensured—asked someone to stay up with you. Mr. Mason or Mr. Carlin. Perhaps even left Wyatt—”

“We agreed to trust no one, and you needed Wyatt with you. I would never have let either of you go on such an endeavor alone.”

“Hang the endeavor,” Flynn said, and with such a snarling force of fire that Lucy would have jumped a little had she been standing.

He looked up at her, his hands tightly grasping hers. “If it is between you and Rittenhouse, I know what my choice is. I would never find another like you, not if I searched for a thousand years.”

Lucy reassessed the last few months—Flynn’s courting of her, his behavior, the way that he told her that it was not his family or Wyatt that impelled him to continue—and further realized that she had not only been blind to her desires, but to the man in front of her.

“Garcia,” she said, softly.

Flynn looked taken aback, and well he should, for she had never said his first name. Not even at the wedding ceremony.

Gently, she disentangled her fingers from his, and pressed her fingertips underneath his chin, drawing him up more to her face. Bringing him close enough that there could be no doubt as to her purpose.

For a moment she lay suspended, half in agony, half in hope.

Then she pressed her lips to his, and Flynn responded.

He kissed her as though he was drinking life itself from her, and Lucy nearly wept in sheer relief. Again and again, she stole kisses, greedy, hungry as she had not been since she had first kissed Wyatt and known that he would kiss her back, wanting confirmation after confirmation and still more, wanted to be drunk on Flynn’s mouth.

Flynn’s hands moved up to brace on the bed as she tugged at him, brought him ever closer to her. “Lucy—”

“Please.” She felt dizzy already, and yet at the same time as though Flynn was the only fixed point in the universe. “Garcia, I want—”

“You’re in shock—”

“I promise you, this is not shock—”

“What about your—your fiancé—”

Lucy stared up at him. “I hardly think that Wyatt would object to this, given the stares he has been laying upon you lately. He’s as lovesick a puppy.”

Flynn’s mouth fell open. “Wyatt. _Wyatt_ is your—”

Lucy gaped right back at him. “I thought—I thought you knew, when he came—”

“I thought it fortuitous, I never…” Flynn sat down heavily on the bed next to her. “I have been a fool.”

“Yes, yes you have, my sweetheart.” The words fell from her mouth before she could stopper them up.

Flynn looked at her. “You—Lucy. I would never—if I had known—”

“Do you love him?”

Flynn nodded.

“Do you love me?”

Flynn looked agonized. “More than my soul.”

“Then we are all in accord.” Lucy reached for him again. “Now kiss me, or else I will have to go mad.”

“We cannot have that,” Flynn murmured, a ghost of a smirk on his face as he allowed her to draw him atop her.

“I am only sorry it took me so long,” she whispered, guiding him to press her down to the mattress. “And then I thought—it was only Wyatt that you wanted—I did not know my own heart, but I do now—” She kissed him, over and over, as Flynn’s had slid up her skirt and she was wildly grateful that she was only in a nightgown, easily shoved aside. “—I love, I love, I love you—I love you—”

Flynn found his way up to the apex of her thighs, stroking her, and Lucy arched up, inadvertently drawing her chest up to his mouth and Flynn did not waste a moment, kissing down her neck and drawing the fabric of her gown down with his teeth so that he might then kiss and suck at her breast. Lucy sank a hand into his hair and another into the bedsheets, feeling untethered and anchored at the same moment, little sighs falling rhythmically from her as Flynn drew his thumb over her clit and through her folds again and again.

He was teasing her, just enough to draw it out, to pull her ever higher, his mouth moving slowly back up her neck until his lips were at her ear. Lucy could not halt the small noises that were starting to leak out of her, her hips rolling up into his fingers.

“Beautiful,” Flynn was whispering in her ear. “Beautiful, Lucy, I never—never thought, never hoped—” He seemed to give up on words and kissed her jaw with a tenderness that made her ache even as he eased his fingers into her, spread her, stroked her until she was certain that his entire hand was soaked.

Lucy began to fear that she’d soon be in danger of waking Jiya or the servants, and yanked Flynn’s mouth back to hers, sucking his tongue into her mouth, letting him muffle her as she jerked her hips and sank into perfect oblivion.

Flynn drew his hand out, kissing her until his smile, and hers, made such an endeavor impossible.

“My darling,” he whispered. “My darling wife.”

“How long have you wished to say that?”

Flynn’s face was flushed, and he looked almost shy. “Since—I do not even know.”

“Before we married?”

“Long before then. I was in the middle before I realized I had begun.”

Lucy reached up and stroked his cheek with her thumb. “And I had no idea. I’m sorry.”

Flynn turned his face, kissing her palm. “Do not be. I am… not the easiest person with whom to discuss… emotions. As Jiya has often informed me.”

He pulled away, standing. Lucy propped herself up, confused. “Where are you going? Do you not wish…” She looked pointedly between his legs, where she could see him straining against the confines of his pants.

Flynn shook his head. “I must check with Wyatt, ensure that all is secure. You will be safe here.”

Lucy bit her lip. “Will you… join me later? When all is finished?”

Flynn ducked his head down, and she caught the flash of a besotted smile. “Yes. If that is what you wish.”

“It is.”

He bent down swiftly, kissing her, as if following an impulse that he no longer had to hold back, and then he was gone.

Lucy was well into sleep by the time she felt the bed dip and a solid warmth slide in gingerly next to her, but she stirred just enough to appreciate the feel of Flynn curling around her protectively.

She turned so that now her face was pressed against his chest and felt Flynn’s heart speed up. She smiled and shamelessly nuzzled into him. “Wyatt?”

“Trooped off to bed before I could compel him to join us.”

Well, no matter. They would speak to him in the morning.

Lucy curled up as close to Flynn as she could possibly get and slept.

* * *

“It is all in the papers!” Lucy said excitedly, thrusting the object of her speech out in front of her to show both gentlemen over breakfast.

Wyatt thought it rather too early for breakfast, but Flynn was the sort of man who kept a punctual routine and Lucy had undoubtedly stayed awake all night hoping for this moment, and Wyatt was not going to be the layabout who missed all the news.

“The scandal of the year,” he recited, reading from the paper.

“You have to admit, it is quite a change from the usual, ‘Mrs. W was seen stepping out with a man not her husband’,” Flynn drawled.

“Give it a month,” Lucy replied. “Then Lord Byron will do something again and he’ll be back in the scandal pages where he belongs.”

“You are rather hard on the poor man.”

“Garcia, I heard from Mr. Mason that when a friend of his was dispatched to Rome to bring the lord home again, he was found in a gutter and the friend was advised to leave him there.”

“You should not put such stock in everything Mason says.”

Wyatt nearly dropped his toast over hearing Lucy call Flynn by his first name.

He knew that Lucy still loved him. She would have told him if she did not. She would not be so discourteous as to leave him in wait when there was no longer anything to be waiting for.

But she also loved Flynn. And Flynn loved her—devotedly, to the ends of the earth, and perhaps even beyond that.

He would not interfere. He would do the right thing.

“Now that Rittenhouse and its doings have been successfully drawn into the harsh light of scandal,” he noted, “I presume you two will… find a proper estate in the country?”

Lucy put down the paper and looked appalled. “Us two? You will not be joining us?”

Wyatt realized that his mouth was hanging open. “I—that is—why would—I should never presume—”

Flynn put his hand over Wyatt’s on the table. “Presume,” he said, his voice a low and firm rumble that sent fire down Wyatt’s spine.

“Presume everything,” Lucy whispered.

After that—well, the footman who entered to clear the breakfast plates was quite scandalized, and that is all to be said on the matter.

**Author's Note:**

> This fic now has a coda, found in chapter three of the fic "As the Fairytales Say," a collection of fic codas originally posted on my tumblr.


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